News & Events, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University

MEM Program Celebrates 35th Anniversary

Silicon Valley investor Guy Kawasaki will speak on February 13

Northwestern University’s Master of Engineering Management (MEM) program celebrates its 35th anniversary in 2014 and will acknowledge the milestone with its first Industry Night on February 13.

The event will feature Silicon Valley author, investor, business adviser, and speaker Guy Kawasaki. His talk is open to the public and will take place at 6:45 p.m. in room 164 in the James L. Allen Center on Northwestern’s Evanston campus.

“We’re excited to celebrate 35 years of educating innovators,” said Mark Werwath, director of the MEM program. “This celebration will bring together those who value the importance of education at the intersection of engineering and business.”

Founded by the visionary professor Al Rubenstein, the MEM program was designed to supply future leaders for Chicago’s manufacturing companies. It was developed on the premise that engineers, as adept innovators and problem-solvers, should lead organizations, but they frequently need to supplement their engineering background with business knowledge and quantitative decision-making skills.

Thirty-five years later, MEM programs all over the country are shaping engineering talent to innovate and change the world. While manufacturing problems have been replaced by complexities in design, innovation, sustainability, environment, and big data, today's engineers are better equipped than ever to imagine, create, and implement solutions for tomorrow.

Northwestern’s MEM program is designed for engineering and science professionals who want to develop core management and leadership skills while staying on the cutting edge of technology. With both full- and part-time options, the curriculum empowers engineers to communicate in the language of business and to move from thinking tactically to thinking strategically.

Other activities planned in celebration of the anniversary are an MEM Consortium Simulation Competition (with Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, MIT, Stanford, and the University of Southern California) sponsored by PriSim Business War Games; an analytics competition with Accenture; and a talk on engineering and social networks by Noshir Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences and industrial engineering and management sciences.